Counties Down and Armagh occupy the southeastern corner of Northern Ireland, between Belfast and the border and contain some of the region’s most attractive countryside, especially around the coast. You’re also never far away from places associated with St Patrick, who sailed into Strangford Lough to make his final Irish landfall in County Down, founded his first bishopric at Armagh and is buried at either Downpatrick or Armagh, depending on whose claim you prefer.

As you head south from Belfast, the glowering Mourne Mountains increasingly dominate the panorama, and it’s in this direction that most of the attractions lie. If you simply take the main roads in and out of Belfast – the A1 for Newry and the border, or the M1 motorway west – you’ll come across very little to stop for: it’s in the rural areas, the mountains and coast, that the charm of this region lies. One of the best options is to head east from Belfast around the Down shore – past the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, one of the best in the North, and the blowsy suburban resort of Bangor into the Ards Peninsula or along the banks of Strangford Lough. Near the Lough’s southern tip, Downpatrick is closely associated with the arrival of St Patrick. There are plenty of little beaches, early Christian sites, defensive tower houses and fine mansions to visit on the way towards Newcastle, the best base for excursions on foot into the Mourne Mountains. Beyond the Mournes a fine coast road curves around to Carlingford Lough and the border. Inland, Hillsborough, resembling an English Cotswolds-style village, is closely linked to the political development of the North.

Below Lough Neagh, the north of County Armagh is dominated by the developed industrial strip known as Craigavon which contains the towns of Lurgan and Portadown, and has little to attract you. Away from the towns, however, there are two stately homes of interest, Ardress and the Argory, and some excellent cycling country north of Loughgall. The villages of South Armagh – a predominantly Catholic area – were the heartland of violent Republicanism, and often referred to as “Bandit Country” or “The Killing Fields”, even by locals. Armagh city, however, is well worth visiting for its ancient associations, cathedrals and fine Georgian streets, while South Armagh has some startlingly attractive country, especially around the peak of Slieve Gullion.

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The Orange Order and the marching tradition

Ireland’s oldest political grouping, The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, was founded in September 1795 following the so-called Battle of the Diamond, which took place in or near Dan Winter’s farm near Loughgall. The skirmish involved the Peep O’Day boys (Protestants) and the Defenders (Catholics) and was the culmination of a long-running dispute about control of the local linen trade. The Defenders attacked an inn, unaware that inside the Peep O’Day boys were armed and waiting. A dozen Defenders were killed, and in the glow of victory their opponents formed the Orange Order.

The first Orange Lodge march in celebration of the 1690 Battle of the Boyne took place in 1796, and they’ve been happening ever since. The Boyne is the Loyalist totem, even though the actual battle at Aughter that ended Jacobite rule did not take place until the following year. William of Orange is their icon, despite the fact that his campaign was supported by the pope and most of the Catholic rulers of Europe, and that William himself had a noted reputation for religious tolerance. For Protestant Ulster, the Boyne came to represent a victory that enshrined Protestant supremacy and liberties, and the Orange Order became the bedrock of Protestant hegemony. Between 1921 and 1969, for example, 51 of the 54 ministers appointed to the Stormont government were members of the Orange Order; at its peak, so were two-thirds of the Protestant male population of the North.

The Loyalist “marching season” begins in March and culminates in celebration of the Battle of the Boyne on July 12, followed by the Apprentice Boys’ traditional march around the walls of Derry on August 12. Most Loyalist marches are uncontentious – small church parades, or commemorations of the Somme – but it can’t be denied that some of them are something other than a vibrant expression of cultural identity. Marching can be a means by which one community asserts its dominance over the other – Loyalists selecting routes that deliberately pass through Nationalist areas, for instance, or their “Kick the Pope” fife-and-drum bands deliberately playing sectarian tunes and making provocative gestures such as the raising of five fingers on Belfast’s Lower Ormeau Road (where five Catholics were shot dead in 1992). Though Loyalist marches have tended to be the flashpoints for major disturbances in recent years, not least in the late 1990s at Drumcree near Portadown, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the marching tradition is common to both communities. Around three thousand marches take place throughout Northern Ireland each year and, although the vast majority are Loyalist parades, a significant number are Nationalist. The latter include the St Patrick’s Day (March 17) marches of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish National Foresters, and commemorative parades and wreath-laying ceremonies by Sinn Féin and other Republican bodies on Easter Monday and various anniversaries.